20 posts in this topic

Denis W. 717

In this age of devices going mobile, computing shifting towards touch and tablets, desktops are no doubt a dying breed. I have a tablet. I have a phone. I have my laptop for school. I use all of them daily.

Now my desktop. Wind back to 2007 when I did a significant rebuild of my desktop (thread here). I had a dumb phone, my then-laptop was giving me hell with overheating and dying GPU, and tablets weren't a thing then. As a refresher, this was the original config in December 2007:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 with OCZ Vanquisher as cooler

RAM: 2x1 GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R

Sound card: SB Audigy 2 ZS

Hard drives: WD5000AAKS 500 GB, WD2500KS 250 GB -> total 750 GB

GPU: XFX GeForce 8800 GT with stock cooler

Case: Antec Super Lanboy

PSU: Enermax Noisetaker 485W

Monitor: 15" Samsung monitor

Speakers: Logitech X-530

Keyboard: Microsoft Multimedia Keyboard

Mouse: plain Microsoft Optical USB mouse

Burner: some white LG DVD-RW drive

Fast-forward more than 6 years later and now it's this (bolded items were changed):

Sound card: back to onboard sound (NB: up to recently I was using the Auzentech X-Fi Prelude, but was fed up with lack of driver support, card blaring out ungodly static, and that even modified Creative drivers don't work with the Prelude anymore)

Speakers: Logitech X-530 (this is the one piece of kit that hasn't been replaced since December 2005!)

Mouse: Logitech G500

Keyboard: Corsair Vengeance K60 mechanical keyboard

Burner: almost the same LG burner but now coloured black

So while most of my desktop has changed, the 3 essentials of CPU, RAM, and motherboard have remained intact. Yet I'm still fairly satisfied with regards to performance and enjoyment factor. Yes it's not as power efficient as the latest CPU and MB combinations. Yes the CPU isn't as good as today's CPUs for decoding movies. But that doesn't bother me much.

It seems like the time to build this desktop, towards the end of the last decade, was the most ideal time. It came when Windows 7 began the reversal of needing more powerful hardware to go with increasingly power hungry software, moreso now with Windows 8 and tablet (hybrids).

Hence my dilemma: as much as I'd like to finally schedule a replacement of the CPU, motherboard, and RAM sticks all at once sometime soon, I'm also equally hesitant to. I could perhaps repurpose the CPU, motherboard, and mouse into upgrading another computer build in this house if need be. But in either case I'll have surplus hardware doing nothing. First world problems :p

Anyways, that's another testimonial for modular custom-built desktops. In this timespan I've had to replace that dying laptop with another one, which while is also showing signs of slowness, I'm also hesitant to replace too since Windows 8 runs fine on that laptop.

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ToneKnee 257

This is the thing about adopting early on multi-core CPU's, as more and more programs and games become multi-threaded the CPU lasts longer rather than back in 2003 with the Pentium 4's, you wouldn't dare using one after 6 years.

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+Andre S. 1,687

Why change it if it's still doing everything you want it to do? How will spending hundreds of dollars on new hardware improve your quality of life? Yeah, 4th gen Intel Core CPUs are 2-4 times faster than your Q6600, but if your CPU is still not a significant bottleneck in anything you do, then you'll see little gain. Keep in mind DDR4 is right around the corner with Broadwell (5th gen Intel Core) in 2015.

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Denis W. 717

This is the thing about adopting early on multi-core CPU's, as more and more programs and games become multi-threaded the CPU lasts longer rather than back in 2003 with the Pentium 4's, you wouldn't dare using one after 6 years.

Definitely. Trying to use Windows 7 on my older desktop with a P4 clocked at 2 GHz and it's pretty bad. If you do nothing but run a program at a time then maybe it'll be okay, but trying to even do a Windows Update in the background and surfing the 'net simultaneously with any modern browser will bring the system to a crawl.

Why change it if it's still doing everything you want it to do? How will spending hundreds of dollars on new hardware improve your quality of life? Yeah, 4th gen Intel Core CPUs are at least 4 times faster than your Q6600, but if your CPU is still not a significant bottleneck in anything you do, then you'll see little gain. Keep in mind DDR4 is right around the corner with Broadwell (5th gen Intel Core) in 2015.

The only CPU bottleneck that would bother me is if, for instance, the PC port of GTAV runs unbelievably bad, going by how GTAIV went. Otherwise yeah, at this point I'm looking for an excuse to buy stuff were an upgrade to happen this year. :P

I wasn't fully aware of the latter point; perhaps I'll wait out an additional year for that reason alone.

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Auditor 120

I have two desktops and I love it both. I really like the freedom of customization in term of hardware upgrade on desktop. I have 2006 quad core cpu on one of my desktop and I installed Hackintosh on it and it works without any issue. My other desktop has Sandybridge i7 and I have upgraded HD with SSD and power in that. I don't really use high CPU intensive work which might create bottleneck anywhere but overall I am happy with my desktop.

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Obi-Wan Kenobi 1,079

By all means, brag about this ancient beast. Also, rub it in on those of us who own older, still functional systems. We all love that. Feels good huh? Feeding trolls is awesome. Especially when it makes their e-peens seem (smaller) bigger. Keep on trolling.

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Stokkolm 239

By all means, brag about this ancient beast. Also, rub it in on those of us who own older, still functional systems. We all love that. Feels good huh? Feeding trolls is awesome. Especially when it makes their e-peens seem (smaller) bigger. Keep on trolling.

The only one who seems to be trolling is you. How is he trolling for talking about his hardware in the "hardware hangout?" You need to calm the ###### down.

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Denis W. 717

By all means, brag about this ancient beast. Also, rub it in on those of us who own older, still functional systems. We all love that. Feels good huh? Feeding trolls is awesome. Especially when it makes their e-peens seem (smaller) bigger. Keep on trolling.

Hey if your older system works great for you, more power to you. Definitely not a bad thing for old hardware to remain useful! I did mention having an older P4 and still have it, albeit repurposed for another use.

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notuptome2004 128

Hey if your older system works great for you, more power to you. Definitely not a bad thing for old hardware to remain useful! I did mention having an older P4 and still have it, albeit repurposed for another use.

if you ever do upgrade everything in your system take your current system slap windows 8.1 on the sucker or what ever OS ya choose and turn it in to a media streaming PC

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+T3X4S 3,296

By all means, brag about this ancient beast. Also, rub it in on those of us who own older, still functional systems. We all love that. Feels good huh? Feeding trolls is awesome. Especially when it makes their e-peens seem (smaller) bigger. Keep on trolling.

wow, a little sensitive, huh ? Dang - its not a big deal - some people have & some dont - it brings balance to the universe. Remember, its all relative. For every person out there who thinks they have some massive badass system, there is someone out there who laughs at trivial stuff (Im thinking rich kids of Instagram who spend $50,000 in 1 night at a club), and someone else who would love to own a computer, any computer - its all about balance. ;)

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Melfster 328

I have very similar desktop to your unupgraded Q6600. In fact it still duel boots OS X and windows 7. The only thing upgraded was RAM and added lots of hard disk. I will to another build maybe at end of this year.

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+Fahim S. 748

For me the hard discs have been changed (to SSDs), the graphics card has been replaced (more for noise than performance), and I have a far better monitor. Other peripherals have been updated regularly (keyboard, mouse, webcam etc.)

I am not a gamer at all. As much as I get the itch to upgrade every so often, I find it very difficult to justify it. My system runs Windows 8 really well.

It will eventually need replacing. The box is ugly (unsurprisingly), it's noisier than I would like but it works for me.

To me it shows 2 things: 1) max out the right components and your machine will continue to perform - for a non gamer that means the most possible memory and the quickest most capacious discs, and 2) they've done a hell of a job making Windows lighter.

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+warwagon 7,809

I built my main 4 monitor workstation the 1st week the 1st Gen i7's came out. It's was and still is an i7 920. Since then i've added more ram for a total of 12 GB. Added a 120 GB SSD and it Still runs great.

So it's around 5 going on 6 years old.

By all means, brag about this ancient beast. Also, rub it in on those of us who own older, still functional systems. We all love that. Feels good huh? Feeding trolls is awesome. Especially when it makes their e-peens seem (smaller) bigger. Keep on trolling.

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JJ_ 127

There comes a point where band aid upgrades just don't cut it. Do what I did with my 2006 Core2Duo build and pass it onto someone less fortunate or use it as a server or put it to some use.

Re. DDR4 & Broadwell... there is always something better around the corner but would the added cost or minimal performance boost be worth it (as is usually the case when hopping from an end of generation to new generation CPU). If you end up waiting for the next best CPU, you may never end up upgrading as there will always be something around the corner. Take the plunge and don't forget to treat yourself to an SSD for your OS/apps!

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PGHammer 2,294

if you ever do upgrade everything in your system take your current system slap windows 8.1 on the sucker or what ever OS ya choose and turn it in to a media streaming PC

Windows 8.1 would actually run on it - I actually DO run 8.1 on a similar system (yes - the same system that triples 8.1, Server 2012R2, and OS X Mavericks). That is what happens when OS requirements go nowhere.

The reason I'm looking to upgrade has to do with an "outlier" feature - Hyper-V (much better virtualization) along with support for more RAM (again, virtualization is the driver there), as my motherboard takes only DDR2 and is full (4GB capacity due to only two DIMM slots, both of which have 2GB DIMMs in them). Thing is, unlike some, I'm not going to blow smoke and say that it's critical - I KNOW it's an outlier feature.

This same desktop started off as a Vista-based desktop (Ultimate x64) and has seen 7 Ultimate x64 along with 8 Pro/8 ProWMC, and now 8.1 ProWMC, Windows Server 2012/2012R2, and OS X back to Snow Leopard along with every version of OS X since (Mountain Lion, Lion, and now Mavericks). What upgrades there have been have been in terms of storage, sound, and graphics - in no case were any of the upgrades (except one) due to incompatibility issues. (The sound upgrade - from X-Fi XtremeGamer to Recon3D Fatality Professional - is the exception; however, that issue is a hardware flaw, not software. It is also the ONLY component replaced via upgrade that did not get passed down.)

Desktops only seem to be going away, because the dummies of the world have reproduced. ;)

Hum - desktops are becoming less relevant because cheaper hardware (tablets, smartphones, etc.) have gained capabilities that used to be exclusive to desktops.

They aren't dead - they just are nowhere near as critical to getting things done as they used to be.

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Night Prowler 73

Why change it if it's still doing everything you want it to do? How will spending hundreds of dollars on new hardware improve your quality of life? Yeah, 4th gen Intel Core CPUs are 2-4 times faster than your Q6600, but if your CPU is still not a significant bottleneck in anything you do, then you'll see little gain. Keep in mind DDR4 is right around the corner with Broadwell (5th gen Intel Core) in 2015.

I'm still satisfied with my 6 year old build. I was getting a little frustrated with the speed a couple of years ago, and installed an SSD. I'm still using it two+ years later very satisfied.